The conference aims to contribute towards understanding and collective
action, in Australia and internationally, to urgently address the
climate and social emergencies that we must overcome if humanity and the
planet are to not only survive, but thrive.

The detention of these socialists was designed to intimidate
people from supporting a broad mass rally for free and fair
elections that called for July 9 by civil society groups united in
the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections (Bersih, which means “clean”).

July 1, 2011 -- Emergency protest outside Malaysian Airlines offices in Sydney to demand
the release of 30 Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) detained since June
25 and accused of waging "war against the king"... the "evidence" a few
political t-shirts in their posession! These arrests are part of a
crackdown on oppositionists in the lead up to the July 9 Bersih 2.0
democracy march in Kuala Lumpur. Photos by Peter Boyle.

June 15, 2011 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- For
environmentalists, Indigenous rights activists, feminists, socialists
and all progressive people, Latin America is a source of hope and
inspiration today. The people of Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia and Ecuador, among others, are showing that radical social change is
possible and a better, more just society can be imagined and built.

The
tide of rebellion and revolution now sweeping Latin America is
posing a serious challenge to imperialism’s brutal global rule. For
anyone who wants an end to war, exploitation and oppression, Latin
America’s struggles to create alternatives are crucially important.

Australia's leading socialist newspaper Green Left Weekly
is strongly committed to supporting the growing “people’s power”
movement in Latin America. Through our weekly articles on
developments in the region, GLW strives to counter the corporate
media’s many lies about Latin
America’s revolutions, and to give a voice in English to the people’s
movements for change.

Joint statement of the Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) and the Socialist Alliance (Australia)

May 18, 2011 -- The Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) and the Socialist Alliance in
Australia denounce the recent agreement made between the governments of
Malaysia and Australia, whereby Australia will send 800 asylum seekers
who have been detained by Australian authorities to Malaysia in exchange
for 4000 refugees currently in Malaysia.

The arrangement for this “Malaysian solution” to asylum seekers
attempting to arrive in Australia clearly shows that the Australian
government is washing its hands of its responsibility to protect
refugees and is “off-shoring” or “outsourcing” the violation of refugee
rights to Malaysia, a country with no proper legal instruments to
protect the rights of refugees. Both the governments of Malaysia and
Australia have not taken the plight of refugees and asylum seekers
seriously, and only treat them like trade-able commodities.

May 14, 2011 -- The Socialist Alliance calls on the Colombian government to immediately release independent media activist Joaquin Perez Becerra, who is now facing charges of “terrorism”.

Perez Becerra, a refugee from Colombia, is a Swedish citizen. We also call on the Swedish government to do its upmost to defend the rights of one of its citizens.

Under Article 33(1) of the Geneva Convention, no refugee shall be returned “in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion”.

We also call on the Venezuelan government, which complied with Colombia's request to deport Perez Becerra to Colombia, to demand that Colombia respect the rights due to Perez Becerra under international conventions.

Perez Becerra, a strong voice in defence of human rights in Colombia, was forced to leave Colombia in 1993 following the murder of his wife and constant death threats against him due to his membership in the Union Patriotica (UP).

As a member of this democratic and legally registered party, Perez Becerra was elected city councillor in Corinto, Valle del Cauca. However, a state-sponsored campaign of violence and terror against the UP resulted in the assassination of more than 4000 UP members.

John Bellamy Foster, renowned US economist and ecologist, editor of the US socialist journal Monthly Review and author of The Ecological Rift, The Ecological Revolution, The Great Financial Crisis (with Fred Magdoff), Marx’s Ecology; Ecology Against Capitalism, and The Vulnerable Planet, will be a featured international guest at the second World at a Crossroads: Climate Change – Social Change Conference, Friday, September 30 – Monday, October 3, 2011, Melbourne University.

April 30, 2011 -- The Socialist Alliance in Australia
sends our warm comradely greetings and best wishes for
successful activities on
May 1, International Workers’ Day.

May Day this year takes place in a
tumultuous time: the multiple crises confronting global
capitalism are
deepening, while mass resistance to its brutal rule grows. The
people’s
uprisings across the Arab world this year pose a major challenge
to imperialism
and neoliberalism, and are inspiring hope and resistance among
oppressed people
everywhere.

April 27, 2011 -- Climate and Capitalism -- Is there a taboo against attributing environmental problems to population growth? Are populationist views being suppressed?

Sir David Attenborough thinks so. On March 10, the noted naturalist
and broadcaster told a meeting in London that there is a “strange
silence … some bizarre taboo” about the population issue. This “absurd
taboo” has “a powerful grip on the minds of so many worthy and
intelligent people”. Attenborough urged his listeners to “break the
taboo”, by raising the population issue whenever and wherever they
could.

Who was he talking to? Who were the brave people who dared to listen
to a talk on this forbidden topic? Was it some secretive group, hanging
on despite all odds, somehow keeping alive the truths that are
suppressed by the powers that be?

April 10, 2011 -- Green Left Weekly -- While Palestinian, Israeli and international non-violent protesters
who march against Israel’s policies in the Occupied Territories are
literally showered in sewage, beaten, arbitrarily arrested and sometimes
killed by Israeli forces, the battle against non-violent resistance has
taken its own ugly form in Australia.

Supporters of the non-violent global boycott, divestment and
sanctions (BDS) movement — especially members of the Greens — have been
subjected to abuse in a deliberate national campaign of misinformation
and slurs orchestrated against them. It has questioned their values and
integrity and falsely accused them of anti-Semitism.

The war on BDS is part of a concerted effort to sabotage Palestinian
and Israeli non-violent resistance against Israel’s 43-year-old illegal
occupation and its 63 years of discrimination against non-Jewish Israeli
citizens.

March 20, 2011 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/Green Left Weekly -- Western Sahara is the last country in Africa awaiting decolonisation. Invaded by Spain in the late 19th century, in the early 1970s mass mobilisations heralded the birth of the modern independence movement. In 1973, Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Rio de Oro (Polisario Front) was established to wage an armed independence struggle.

By 1975, the dying days of the Franco dictatorship, the Spain had been fought to a standstill. However, rather than allow independence, Spain made an agreement with neighbouring countries, Morocco and Mauritania, whereby these countries would occupy Western Sahara while Madrid would retain access to its maritime resources.

Many Saharawi fled to refugee camps on the border with Algeria. However, most of the men returned to fight for independence. On February 27, 1976, the Polisario Front declared the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).

Evacuees sit through an earthquake at a temporary shelter at a stadium in Koriyama. Photo: Reuters.

Appeal for financial solidarity with the victims and evacuees
of the northeastern Japan earthquake/tsunami and Fukushima
nuclear disaster

By the Japan Revolutionary Communist League (JRCL) and the National Council of Internationalist Workers (NCIW)

March 17, 2011 -- On March 11, at 2:30 PM (JST), the tremendously powerful earthquake
of magnitude 9 hit the vast area of eastern Japan, comprised of northeast and Kanto regions. The earthquake gave rise to the formidable
tsunami, which devastated numerous cities and towns all along
the Pacific coast from the northernmost prefecture of Aomori to the
southern Chiba prefecture. At the time of March 17, the number of deaths
and missing persons is already close to 20,000, and the number
continues to increase.

February 22, 2011 -- Solidarity rally in Sydney with the
Libyan people in their struggle for democracy. Photo by Kiraz Janicke. See an article
about this action here: http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/46782.

March 18, 2011 -- The threat of military air strikes against Libya by Britain, France, the US and allies — now supported by a March 17 UN Security Council resolution
— may or may not force the despotic Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi to
stop using its armed forces against the rebel-held city of Benghazi in
the short term.

However, it does pose grave dangers for the sovereignty of Libya and
for the wave of democratic revolts that have swept the Arab world this
year.

February 22, 2011 -- Solidarity rally in Sydney with the
Libyan people in their struggle for democracy. Photo by Pip Hinman. See an article
about this action here: http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/46782

March 16, 2011 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Most interested observers of the public statements and activity of the Australian organisations Socialist Alternative (SAlt) and Socialist Alliance in regard to Libya would surely conclude that the two groups are in concord: a similar analysis of the pro-imperialist nature of the regime and enthusiastic support for the struggle of the workers and oppressed against dictatorship. Which makes it quite disappointing that Corey Oakley of SAlt has launched a swingeing polemic against Socialist Alliance about Libya[1]. [See Appendix 1 below]

March 13, 2011 -- Green Left Weekly -- Saif al-Islam, the billionaire son of Muammar Gaddafi who was the
neoliberal darling of Western governments until only recently, boasted
in a March 10 interview with Reuters that forces loyal to his family
were now on the offensive against rebel forces.

NATO, for its part, has decided against military intervention — for the time being. However, France became the first government to recognise the rebel
Interim Transitional National Council (ITNC) set up in Benghazi on March
5. AFP reported that France's President Nicolas Sarkozy has also proposed
“targeted air strikes” on Libya.

March 7, 2011 -- Green Left Weekly -- The dictatorial regime of Muammar Gaddafi has escalated its violence against rebel forces seeking to bring it down. On March 6, opponents of the regime were reported to be in control of a number of cities, especially in Libya’s east. Al Jazeera said on March 4 that anti-government protests in the
capital Tripoli had been met with tear gas by security forces. Opponents said Az Zawiyah, a town just 40 kilometres from Tripoli
that is home to an oil refinery, was mostly under rebel control.

Alhem Belhadj (right) speaking at a session of the French New Anti-Capitalist Party congress, February 11.

February 27, 2011 -- Alhem Belhadj is a Tunisian revolutionary socialist and member of the Ligue de la Gauche Ouvriers
(Left Workers’ League). It is a part of the 14th January Front, which
unites left-wing groups seeking to push Tunisia’s revolution forward by
creating a new government free from members of the former ruling party,
and supporters policies reversing neoliberalism.

Belhadj spoke with Green Left Weekly’s Tony Iltis on February 12, at the congress of the New Anti-Capitalist Party in France, about the Tunisian revolution.

* * *

I think there is a real revolutionary process. Things are going very quickly.

There is a lot of change. Every day, there is some change and there is a big popular resistance.

February 25, 2011 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal-- For
environmentalists, Indigenous rights activists, feminists, socialists
and all progressive people, Latin America is a source of hope and
inspiration today. The people of Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia and Ecuador, among others, are showing that radical social change is
possible and a better, more just society can be imagined and built.

The
tide of rebellion and revolution now sweeping Latin America is
posing a serious challenge to imperialism’s brutal global rule. For
anyone who wants an end to war, exploitation and oppression, Latin
America’s struggles to create alternatives are crucially important.

Australia's leading socialist newspaper Green Left Weekly
is strongly committed to supporting the growing “people’s power”
movement in Latin America. Through our weekly articles on
developments in the region, GLW strives to counter the corporate
media’s many lies about Latin
America’s revolutions, and to give a voice in English to the people’s
movements for change.